It’s the last thing any parent, Perry Highway-commuter, or punctual student wants to encounter in the morning— cars at a standstill in front of the NASH main entrance on Rt. 19.

The cause? Yet another traffic accident, one of many of what now seems like a weekly occurrence for the school.

“There have been 33 motor-vehicle accidents at NASH so far this year involving student drivers, up from 26 in the entirety of last year,” NASH School Resource Officer Todd Ray said.

Furthermore, among these accidents of varying degrees of seriousness, several resulted in injuries. 

While an increase was somewhat to be expected given the unique hybrid nature of last year, the sudden jump in these occurrences seems to be significant even for a normal school year.

Many, including Officer Ray, primarily attribute the increase to the abundance and inexperience of the population of NASH drivers. In fact, the senior class this year is the largest Officer Ray has seen yet in his tenure at NASH, with just over 700 students. Indeed, it makes sense that a combination of early-morning drowsiness, two of the largest class sizes in recent history, and relatively new drivers who all share the same destination and timeframe would not be optimal for student driving safety.

While students may not be able to change large student populations, early start times, or a finite number of parking spots, there are measures they can be taken to make the roads safer for themselves and others.

One of these is simply factoring in the increase in traffic as the morning approaches the late bell. If students are running late, they may experience longer wait times as the number of cars increases and parking spots run out. Add in the desire to not arrive to school late, and the perfect breeding ground for rash driving is born.

“It’s about arriving at school on time,” Ray said. “We cannot compare it to mall parking where somebody’s going to be leaving any moment. We need to look at this differently and say ‘I’m arriving just as everybody else is and additional spots are not going to become available.’”

Additionally, Ray warns that some common shortcuts students take, like turning around in the Pups Playhouse parking lot in order to turn right into the southern entrance at NASH, may put them at greater risk of being in an accident with oncoming traffic.

The administration is also looking to initiatives that aim to mitigate the issue. Officer Ray and NASH principal Dr. Dirda are working on creating educational driving safety videos that may be shown to students when they apply for parking permits. Additionally, the administrators, along with student leaders, are seeking more insight into the student perspective in order to come up with solutions.

“We will be starting a new committee on student driving this month so that students can have more opportunities to share their insights on both what it is like to be a student driver here at NASH and how student drivers may best be supported,” said NASH School Board Representative Hannah Shin.

Small adjustments students can make, such as leaving for school five minutes earlier, can save them not only the stress of getting to school on time, but also their insurance premiums and even their safety.